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Winter 2013 vs. 2014: Will it be different?

In 2013, winter officially started early in the Quad Cities.

In 2013, winter officially started early in the Quad Cities.

On October 22nd, 2013, a half-inch of snow fell, kick-starting a season that saw twice the amount of snow than normal.

What a difference a year makes. On October 22nd, 2014, a sunny and snow-less day greeted golfers at Saukie Golf Course in Rock Island.

"This year hasn't been too bad," said Everett Nesseler from Milan, Illinois. "Last year was really bad. It was cold, snowy, and terrible, so we're enjoying this one while we can."

In fact, the only winter on the greens is Saukie's Manager, Todd Winter.

"Last winter was pretty brutal," he said. "So far, this fall we've been pretty fortunate."

That good fortune is expected to continue. According to Ray Wolf, Meteorologist at the National Weather Service of the Quad Cities, this winter should be closer to the norm.

"When you have such an extreme winter like we did last year, just from a statistical perspective, the odds of seeing something that bad again are pretty low because it's a rare event to begin with."

On Wednesday, October 22, 2014, Wolf said so far, the odds are in our favor.

"For temperature, we don't see any strong indication of the odds favoring particularly cold or particularly warm weather," he explained. "On the precipitation side - which is actually harder to forecast than the temperature - we're maybe seeing a slight tilt of the odds towards a drier than normal winter."

The forecast is just that, a forecast at this point. However, some would argue that already we are doing better than last year as we enjoy sunshine and 60s instead of snow and 30s.

For the latest Storm Track 8 forecast, click here.

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